94 BELGIUM 



toilers in the large cities, the situation was one 

 that had to be accepted with the best possible 

 grace. But there came a time when a threat- 

 ened spread of Socialist doctrines to the rural 

 districts gave rise to serious alarm. Various 

 causes were operating to bring about the ap- 

 parently impending result. The agitation in 

 favour of universal suffrage, the rapid spread of 

 education in the agricultural districts, and the 

 wider circulation there of cheap political news- 

 papers had done much to expand the intellectual 

 horizon of dwellers in those districts ; but a much 

 more potent influence in the propagation of 

 Socialist ideas in Belgium has been found in the 

 fact that so many dwellers in the rural districts 

 who are employed in the large industrial centres 

 are brought into daily contact, either in the 

 train or at their work, with individuals of Social- 

 ist tendencies whose views they eventually 

 adopt, more or less, and take back with them to 

 the villages, there to become each a propagandist 

 on his own account. Then every year troops of 

 agricultural labourers proceed from Belgium to 

 France to take part in the harvest, and they, too, 

 bring back advanced ideas with them ; while, in 

 addition to all this, the Socialist party in Belgium 

 has of late years deliberately sought to capture 

 the rural districts by every means in its power. 



